God Remembers
A Study of Humanity • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Noah’s ark. A delightful, cuddly children's book story to wistfully sooth our children to sleep.
I mean, how did that happen? How did the total annihilation of all but 8 human beings, and all the creatures that live on land become a colourful children's story.
This is No Children’s Story
This is No Children’s Story
This should be the stuff of horror stories not bedtime stories.
So evil is mankind, that God is forced to end it all.
This is not some freak flood that shows the resilience of mankind despite adversity!
No, this is a right judgement from a Good God upon the absolute evil, sin and wickedness of humanity.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
We saw last week how true this is of both mankind then and ourselevs still today.
IN fact, Noah is the only person credited with anything other than wickedness, but even as soon as he and His family come out the ark after the flood - God’s assessment of how mankind still and will be hasn’t actually changed..
The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
Ok, future worldly flood annihilations are avoided, - but people havent’ changed.
from childhood, every inclination of the human heart is evil!
Let not the cute bible story book pictures influence this historical account.
The world was dark, violent and evil - and it still is.
and a terrible judgement falls upon all breathing creatures.
And while God promises not to bring a physical annihilation upon this earth again while it exists,
He does pormise he will bring a final spiritual jdydgemnt on us all when Christ retruns and this world is ended and the new creation comes.
This account is a warning message to humanity.
Don’t take God for a fool.
This account is also not just a story. It really did happen. There was a great flood and NOah was a real man,
It takes little faith to believe that but not a lot. Most ancient civilisations have a version of a great flood. Which you would expect if there really was one, and you couldn’t explain if there wasn’t;.
The trust comes in when you take the bibles version to be correct and the others to be corrupt. But if you take the time to read the other accounts, the bible is easily the most believable.
And of course we know so much of the bible has been proved to be true all the way through, so it carries it;s own historical weight.
And fro the Christian, we have seen it to be true in our lives, and can testify to God’s truth in it.
So, what is
The Main Point - God Remembers
The Main Point - God Remembers
What was the main point Moses, when he wrote this account down, wanted the readers to take away?
We tend to put our main point, or our twist right at the end of our accounts or stories.
BUt in Hebrew literarure that was not alwasy the case.
Often the main message would be right at the heart of the account.
It’s called a Chiastic structure.
Imagine an egg timer where everything is filtered through the narrow central point snf out sgsin in the reverse order.
I’m not sure we should look for them everywhere in the OT, but sometimes they are too obvious to ignore.
This section of Genesis then starts at
Noah’s sons (6:10)
and ends with
Noah’s sons (9:18–27)
They Enter the ark (7:1)
They Leave the ark (8:16)
Seven days before the rain starts (7:4)
Seven days more and the dove is sent out the final time (8:12)
And the Seven days repeated in (7:10)
and another Seven days (8:10)
Book ends working inwards until we get to the central point,
But were still not there
God shuts them in 7:16
Noah opens the window 8:6
Forty days (7:17)
Forty days (8:6)
Mountains covered (7:20)
Mountains uncovered (8:5)
Flooding for a total 150 days (7:24)
Water receding for 150 days (8:3)
Look in your bibles, and we now only have a sentance or 2 left - we’ve found the main point.
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
At the pinnacle truingin point of the flood,
we have the cerntral message of what we are to take away:
God remebered the one on whome he has favour - the righteous one,
God remembered - and by His wind - an echo of His Spirit in creation hovering over the deep - God saves.
God remembering is not of course like us - where we totally forget, and then by chance remember.
God remembers simply becasue he cannot forget.
God remembers becasue he cannot but do what he has promised.
Its an emphasis that he will keep his word, his promises.
Just when Noah, just when we are tempted to give up on God, Goid cannot give up on His word. HE REMEBERS - even when we might not.
ANd here God has promised a rescue plan
So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
I will judge, but to those I show mercy and favour -I will save. - Build an ark.
We’re about to see how Noah ‘walked with God’ but let us not be mistaken,
Noah’s actions do not save,
Just as our actions cannot save us.
God saves - He remembers his promises - he Shuts the ark door,
He remebers and casues the wind to dry up the land,
He gives every promsie and instruction to Noah about what and when to do.
God Remembers.
In this modern world - it is not you or I or anyone else we shoudl cling to.
It is the promsies of God in His Word, about Chirst JEsus our rescue Ark!
When we look towards judgement, or are forgetting our Hope ion Jesus
We can pray or sing (as we will a bit later)
Remeber your people, remember you chidlren.
And God will.
If God remembers and saves, what should we do?
Walk with God
Walk with God
Given a choice of charaters in the story - obviouslsy we can’t be God - well then we want to be Noah!
We wnat to be loved and favoured by our loving creator God.
And what is it about Noah that we need to be like?
Was he perfect in everyway,
no, although he was righteous in the eyes on mankind - humanly.
This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.
He was a good guy.
But the descriptions he gets in relation to God is not that he was righteous before God,
but that he walked with God.
What does walking with God look like?.
Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.
Walking with God is to trust and obey the promises and commands of God,
If Noah just said - Oh yes - I believe, I trust, a flood is coming, but did nothing about the coammand to build - he would have condemned himself.
Some say they believe and trust in the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins - but do nothing to walk with Jesus. They avoid humble repentance and do not strive after giodliness.
YOu condemen youself.
To benefit from God’s free salavtion from judgement - we must walk with Him.
We trust his promises and we obey his commands.
Even when it’s very hard to do so.
Did Noah give up in trusting God’s word once he’s been stuck on a stinky ark for weeks and weeks?
After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.
Noah kept expectantly waiting.
he’s still got 110 more days on the ark,
so what did he do?
Gen 8 10,
He waited,
v12
He waited,
Did he sit miserably giving up on his faith in God’s word?
No - he kept sending out the birds.
It’ coming - the new world is coming - week after week he’d send out a bird.
Trusting the word of God,
Expectant of his new world to come.
unitl
‘Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.
So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives.
The exact word of God followed exactly by Noah.
It’s a new start for the one who walks with God.
NOah didn’t, couldn’t, save himself - God saved him by remembering his promised Word,
But the fruit of Noah’s salavtion is confirmed in his walking with God.
We know Noah credited his salvation to God and not his own actions by by obedience, and by his first action after coming of the ark.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.
And It is the aroma of the sacrifice that then causes God to make an astonishing promise:
The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. ‘As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.’
So, This is it now people of the earth Even today,
As long as this earth endures (v22) never again will God bring total anihilation upon mankind.
This is now our chance to hear and heed God’s word.
despite mankind still (even after the flood) being described as every inclinatuon fo the heart being evil,
Will we trust him and walk with him,
or
will we return to live for ouselves?
You wont get another warning like this is the message.
And don’t be mistaken - this is a warning - this was not the worst judgemnt - there is a worse judgdemnt come.
The clue is in ‘as long as the earth endures’
But the earth will not eternally endure.
The NT is very clear that it iwll end with the return of Christ.
And this account of the flood is to prepare us.
It’s a modelling of the final judgement to come - where a completely new world will come about.
Not washed by a flood but destroyed by fire and recreated in God’s perfection.
This was physical judgement and death,
next time it will be spiritual judgement as well.
As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. ‘Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. ‘Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, “My master is staying away a long time,” and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
This is not a chidlren’s story, this is a wanring shot past the ear of humanity.
Don’t take God for a gulible fool.
Next time we will get eternally what we deserve.
Be ready Jesus says for his future return - like a watchman.
Like a faithful servant even when his master is away.
We do as Noah did - we walk with God.
Not earning our salvation through perfection,
but showing our trust in God by believing his word Of salvation and therefore living for him.
Beliveing that he will judge,
and believing that he alone can save.
Not this time encased in wood,
but this time through our saviour hanging on a piece of wood.
The one righteous man Jesus, satisfying the wrath of God upon himself - so we can be looked upon with favour by the Almighty.
When we trust in Jesus, we believe his promises of freedom from judgement
when we put our trust in him we obey his command to repent, and turn from our sin in obedience to his commands as best we can.
We wait patiently,
opening the window of hope.
Sneding out our birds of pray -
Come Lord Jesus dry up this evil land and bring about your new creation.
Retrun to us Lord, so we can join with you perfectly and eternally.
Noah did just this>
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.
He was warned - he heard God’s word.
He had faith - which is to believe what you have not yet seen -
He had a holy fear of God’s judgement and so built an ark in obedience.
He trusted, walked with God, before his own understanding or perspective on the world.
And he received what?
He received an inheritance - he became an heir - to what?
Righteousness that is in keeping with faith!
Friends we may not be righteous,
but we are given righteousness through faith.
Noah didn’t earn salvation - he demonstatred he had salavtion through faithful walking
And in return - he enjoys the righteousness of Jesus with Him forever in the new creation to come.
Let’s pray